MultiChoice, which operates the DStv service, has been awarded a digital mobile television broadcasting licence by default after the other bidder, Super 5 Media, withdrew its application. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) announced on Friday morning that MultiChoice would become the second mobile TV broadcaster after e.tv was awarded a licence earlier this year.
Pay-TV licensee Super 5 Media has finally admitted publicly that it is facing big problems. But newly appointed director Muhammad Lockhat says the company is still working to get a pay-TV product to market, despite it recently retrenching all of its employees. It was recently granted another extension by industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), allowing it until February 2011 to launch a service.
Pay-TV licensee Super 5 Media has been granted another extension by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to launch a service. Icasa spokesman Paseka Maleka says the regulator has granted the company another six months to get a service off the ground.
MultiChoice has added three additional Internet service providers as distribution partners for its DStv On Demand Internet streaming service. They are Vox Telecom, Neology and Cybersmart. The company launched its first online on-demand video offering through MWeb just two months after the Internet service provider came to market with an aggressively priced uncapped broadband service.
SuperSport CEO Imtiaz Patel will succeed Nolo Letele as group CEO of pay-TV broadcaster MultiChoice on 1 October. Letele, who was due to retire later this year, has been named as executive chairman of MultiChoice SA. Announcing the changes on Thursday, a MultiChoice spokesman says the board had agreed on an executive chairmanship to “meet the challenges faced by the underlying entities”.
More than four years after the first mobile-TV service was introduced, only 3,2m users worldwide are paying to receive broadcasts to their handsets, according to research by international analyst firm Juniper Research. This is probably bad news for pay-TV incumbent MultiChoice and cellphone operator Vodacom, both of which have recently introduced mobile-TV products.
Broadcaster MultiChoice is again expanding its high-definition (HD) portfolio, with plans to launch an HD movie channel on 1 October, TechCentral has learnt. The channel, to be called M-Net Movies 1 HD, will join the four HD channels MultiChoice has already launched on its DStv Premium bouquet.
Super 5 Media has just over a month left to release a product to market, before the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) may begin looking at revoking its licence. Super 5 Media was once regarded as the strongest potential competitor to incumbent MultiChoice and its DStv service. However, a TechCentral investigation has revealed the business has all but collapsed.
Super 5 Media, once one of SA’s most promising new pay-TV operators, is coming apart at the seams. TechCentral can reveal exclusively that management has gone to ground amid signs the company, once regarded as the strongest potential competitor to incumbent MultiChoice and its DStv service, is collapsing.
Pay-TV incumbent MultiChoice will unveil a streaming mobile television offering at R59/month on 1 August. DStv Mobile communications manager Maiyo Simapungula says the service is already available in a soft-launch phase. The service is not technically a broadcast, but rather is streamed over 3G compatible handsets using Vodafone Live, Vodacom’s content platform.
